Although
a few Greeks immigrated to the United States during the 1800's,
it was not until the last decade of the 19th century and the
early part of the 20th that they began to arrive in large numbers.
Ultimately, between 1900 and 1920 about 350,000 Greeks came to
America as part of the flood of East European immigrants. The
majority of these early immigrants were single young men who
came from the southern peninsula of Greece known as the Peloponnesus.
Others came from Macedonia in northern Greece and from the Aegean
and Ionian Islands. Following the Immigration Act of 1924, the
number of Greek arrivals drastically fell and did not rise again
until the 1950's.

Today
Greek Americans can be found throughout the United States, but
the majority remain in the large cities to which their ancestors
and family members immigrated. While the stories of Greek American
immigrants are varied and diverse, and their ethnic ties, traditions
and customs have changed over time, this particular ethnic group
has managed to maintain a distinctive ethnic identity by continuously
negotiating between Greek and American cultures and by creating
vibrant Greek American communities.